What's In a Name 2: Plans Gone Awry
by Disgruntled Peony
Summary: The second story in my series. Miss Parker discovers that Lyle has Jarod hidden away. Meanwhile, Angelo and Leslie strive to help Jarod escape.


Title: What's in a Name 2: Plans Gone Awry

Author: liz_Z

E-mail: liz_Z@secret-agent.com

Category: Drama, Angst

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters for 'The Pretender' in any way, shape, or form.  I haven't even made character clones yet!

Author's notes: This is the sequel to 'What's In a Name', and takes place about three days afterwards.  In total, I'd say Jarod was at the Centre somewhere between one and two weeks -- I'm not sure of the exact timeframe, but then, only Lyle and possibly Leslie know that for sure.

Thanks: To my marvelous beta readers, Invision and all the wonderful people at inklings_reborn!  They all know a great deal more about Pretender lore than I do, and as such I rely on them to not only spot mistakes of the grammar and spelling nature, but to spot any mischaracterizations.  I thank them with all my heart; they have made this entire writing experience much more bearable.

Sydney, Broots, and Miss Parker were all standing in what seemed to all appearances to be Jarod's most recent lair.  They were investigating it very carefully, and had been for several hours now.  They had found several things that usually indicated Jarod's recent occupation, but Sydney had insisted that they continue their investigation.

Sydney looked around, a puzzled expression on his face.  Something about this room just didn't seem right.  True, there wasn't anything that seemed particularly disturbing or unusual about this particular place; in fact, it strongly resembled one of Jarod's previous lairs that Sydney, Miss Parker, and Broots had uncovered about a year ago.  And that, Sydney realized with a start, was exactly what had been bothering him.

"Jarod wasn't here," Sydney said quietly.  "He never came anywhere near this place."

Miss Parker looked puzzled for a moment, but then she paled slightly as understanding dawned on her.  Broots, on the other hand, didn't seem to realize what Sydney had meant right off the bat.  "You've gotta be kidding me," he protested.  "This is just like Jarod!  We've seen him leave clues like this before-"

"Which is exactly why Jarod couldn't have been the one to set all this up," Miss Parker said, interrupting him in mid-sentence.  "How many times have we known Jarod to repeat himself?" she asked, giving Broots a cold look.  Broots' face turned bright red in response to her scrutiny.  No words were necessary to express his embarrassment; it was very much evident on his face.  "The question," Miss Parker said thoughtfully, "is where Jarod is now."

Sydney nodded solemnly.  "That is the question, indeed.  And I'm not sure if we have a way of finding the answer."

The room was completely silent for a moment, and then Miss Parker smiled.  "Actually, I think we might have just the thing."

**********

"Let us through," Miss Parker demanded, glaring up at a very large and very dangerous looking Centre employee that was blocking her passage. 

"I can't do that," the man said, glaring menacingly down at her, as well as Sydney and Broots.

Miss Parker placed her hands on her hips, fixing the man with an icy glare and saying in one of her most threatening tones, "You will, if you know what's good for you.  Now let us in."

"Only authorized personnel are allowed beyond this point until further notice," the man said, not budging an inch.

Sydney stepped forward, his expression calm and stoic.  "We're in the middle of an investigation, and talking to Angelo would be very helpful.  Please, let us through."

The guard shook his head.  "Sorry sir, but I have my orders."

"And who gave you these orders?" Miss Parker asked, her eyes blazing with barely concealed fury.

"I'm not at liberty to say," the guard replied.

Miss Parker glared up at the man for a moment longer with an expression on her face that strongly suggested she wanted to shoot him on the spot.  Then she turned around and started to walk away at a fast clip.  Sydney and Broots followed.  Broots made sure to keep his distance, knowing that when Miss Parker was in this sort of mood following too closely might be dangerous for his health.

Once the three of them rounded a corner Miss Parker came to an abrupt stop, her incensed gaze fixing directly on Broots in a manner that made him stop in his tracks with an expression on his face not unlike that of a cornered animal.  "You're going to get me the proper authorization to see Angelo," Miss Parker said harshly, "and you're going to do it now." Then she whirled around and continued to walk down the corridor.

Broots watched her walk down the hall and out of sight, his expression one of fearful resignation.  Sydney gave him a sympathetic look.  "Good luck," he said quietly, and then walked off down the hall after Miss Parker, leaving Broots standing shell-shocked and alone in the hall.

**********

Leslie sat in her small room and stared at the walls listlessly.  She could feel guilt welling up inside of her.  She had hurt Jarod.  Not directly, but she was still very much the cause of any anguish he was currently in.  And he was most certainly in anguish.

She wished so desperately that she had discovered the truth before it was too late.  She should have realized sooner that she wasn't doing the right thing by bringing Jarod back to the Centre.  But she hadn't been provided with all the puzzle pieces and she had done exactly what Lyle had told her to.  She had only discovered the truth when she had witnessed Jarod being dragged into the Centre and had for one brief moment made eye contact with him.  In that moment, all the walls came crashing down and she realized what she had done.

She wished Angelo would come and visit her.  He usually came quite frequently, crawling through the air-vents and whispering to her through the grate.  He'd been doing so for nearly a year, ever since Leslie had begun pretending to be Jarod.  But ever since Jarod had been brought back to the Centre under lock and key, he hadn't bothered to come at all.

"I'm sorry, Jarod," Leslie whispered, a tear trickling down her cheek.  "I should have known.  I should have known..."

**********

Broots stuck his head warily into Miss Parker's office, as if afraid that some sort of projectile weapon was going to be hurled at his head at any second.  Miss Parker looked over at him angrily.  "What?" she asked, the tone of her voice about as warm as the last ice age.

"It's about Angelo," Broots said nervously.  "I think you can talk to him now."

"Did you get the proper authorization?" Miss Parker asked, giving Broots a suspicious look.

"Well... not exactly..." Broots squirmed uncomfortably under Miss Parker's stern gaze.  "I was having problems with the authorization thing, but then Sydney called.  He said Angelo had just shown up in his office."

Miss Parker raised an eyebrow.  "He certainly does get around, doesn't he?"  Broots nodded.  "Is he still there?"

"In the office?  Yeah, I think so.  Sydney's keeping an eye on him."

Miss Parker nodded crisply and then stood up.  "I want you to get on that computer of yours and figure out exactly what's going on around here," she said in a firm tone.  Then she walked out the door and down the hallway to Sydney's office.  She opened the door none too gently, surveying the room with a dubious air.  But, sure enough, Angelo was there, sitting in front of Sydney's desk and looking expectantly at the door.  Sydney was sitting in another chair nearby, carefully maintaining a poker face.

"Angelo," Miss Parker said, standing in front of the empath and using a tone much gentler than she usually used, "can you tell me where Jarod is?"

Angelo's expression grew worried.  "Jarod lost, hurt.  Tired, very tired."

"Yes, but where is he?"

"Here.  Jarod's here.  Help Jarod."  Angelo's voice had taken on a slightly pleading tone.

Miss Parker frowned.  How could Jarod be at the Centre?  Angelo had to be wrong, had to be mistaken.  But Angelo was never mistaken.  "So," she said, turning to Sydney with a grave expression on her face, "Jarod's somewhere in the Centre."

Angelo nodded.  "Have to find him, quick.  Before the bad man swallows him up."  Then he stood up and walked out of the room.  Miss Parker was too busy absorbing the new information to stop him.

Sydney frowned thoughtfully.  "Who is the 'bad man'?" he said in a contemplative tone, placing a hand to his chin.

Miss Parker shook her head.  "I don't know..." But even as she said this, she knew it wasn't completely true.  Because, while she didn't know who the 'bad man' was, she did know someone who ate human flesh; the same person, in fact, who had caused her to be banned from going to see Angelo in the first place.

She abruptly turned on her heel and began to walk toward the door.  Sydney stood up, giving her a dubious look.  "Where are you going?"

Miss Parker turned back to Sydney for a moment, a determined expression on her face.  "I'm following my gut."  Then without further ado she walked out of the room.

**********

Leslie curled up on her bed, quiet sobs racking her body.  However, through the tears she gradually became aware of small noises coming from the air-vent on a nearby wall.  They were subtle and almost unnoticeable, but they were definitely there.  And they could only mean one thing; Angelo.

"Leslie sad," Angelo whispered, his voice floating down from the general direction of the air-vent.  "Sad for Jarod."

Leslie sat up, wiping her tears away with one hand.  "Yes, I'm sad.  I'm sorry, so sorry..."

"You help Jarod?" Angelo asked quietly, his quizzical expression just barely visible through the grate.

"Oh God, I wish I could," Leslie said, wincing at the thought of what Jarod might be going through.  She hadn't had the heart to pretend to be Lyle so she could figure out exactly what was happening.  Lyle disturbed her, and she had no desire to get inside his head.  Still, because she had pretended to be Jarod for so long, she instinctively knew that whatever was being done to him was extremely painful in a physical sense and quite likely would have extreme psychological effects as well.

"Help Jarod," Angelo said, gesturing at Leslie.  It was no longer a question; now it was a statement.  "Come.  Save Jarod."  Leslie nodded.  There was a loud scraping noise, and Angelo opened the air-vent.  Leslie immediately walked over, but paused for a moment underneath.  How was she going to get up there?  The vent was close to the ceiling, and she was much too short to reach it.  And if she tried to move her bed, someone would doubtless hear the commotion and come to check on her.

As if in response to Leslie's troubled thoughts, Angelo climbed down out of the vent and cupped his hands together to form a sort of stirrup.  Leslie smiled.  "Thanks."  Then, with Angelo's help, she climbed up into the vent.  Angelo climbed up behind her and the two of them began to make their way through the ducts.

**********

Miss Parker stormed into Lyle's office in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a rampaging hurricane.  Lyle looked up from some papers he had been reading, looking a little surprised at her entrance.  "Hey there, sis!"

"Cut the crap!" Miss Parker hissed, walking up and positioning herself so that she was practically eye to eye with Lyle.  "Where is he?"

"Who?" Lyle asked, an expression of bewilderment on his face that seemed completely genuine.  He was a good actor; Miss Parker had to give him that.

"You know perfectly well who," she said, grabbing his tie and using it to pull his face even closer to hers.  "Where is Jarod?"

Lyle laughed.  "I thought that was your department," he said, gently but firmly removing his tie from Miss Parker's hand.

"Don't get smart with me," Miss Parker said, giving him a warning look.

Lyle rolled his eyes.  "Look, if you want to play twenty questions, do it some other time."  He grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the door.  "And if that was your usual interrogation technique, it could use a little work."  That said, he pushed her out the door and slammed it in her face.

Normally Miss Parker would have stormed right back in, possibly even going so far as to kick the door down if it became necessary.  But this time she didn't, because she had done exactly what she intended to do- she knew she had unnerved Lyle, even though he had seemed perfectly composed as she had questioned him.  His haste in pushing her out the door, casual as it may have seemed, told her he had been far from calm.

She carefully positioned herself in the doorway of a small room just around the corner of the hall outside Lyle's office, in such a way that she could see the hall and, more importantly, the door to Lyle's office, but it would be very difficult for anyone standing in the hall to see her.  Then, she waited.

Barely five minutes later Lyle walked out of his office, looking a good bit more hurried and uncomfortable than usual.  He glanced around warily, which made Miss Parker very grateful she had chosen her hiding place so carefully, and then began walking off down the hall.  Just before he stepped out of sight Miss Parker slipped out of her hiding place and began to follow him, a sly grin spreading across her face.  This was the sort of thing she truly enjoyed, especially when it meant tormenting Lyle in the process.

***********

Leslie slipped quietly through the ducts, guided by the occasional word from Angelo.  They had traveled deep into the bowels of the Centre by now, and Leslie was getting nervous.  She felt very distinctly that this would not be a good time to discover that she was claustrophobic.

Suddenly Angelo grabbed her foot, effectively stopping her just as she crawled past one of the grates.  She turned around and looked at Angelo quizzically.  "Jarod," he simply said in reply, gesturing toward the grate.  Leslie crawled up to the grate and looked out.  It took her a moment, but she eventually located the figure of a man curled up in a fetal position in the darkest corner of the small room the grate looked out on.

Angelo carefully opened the grate and lowered it to the ground.  Then he climbed out and dropped to the floor.  He helped Leslie down, and then the two of them turned toward Jarod, who had yet to acknowledge their presence.

Leslie took a few cautious steps forward, unsure of what to expect.  She could barely recognize the form huddled in the shadows as the man she had witnessed being dragged into the Centre.  He was haggard and pale, with several days-worth of stubble on his face and dark bags under his eyes that suggested he hadn't slept in a very, very long time.  But the thing that captured Leslie's attention the most were the eyes themselves.  They no longer held that unique sparkle of life she had once seen so clearly.  Now they were dazed and glassy, and all they held was fear.

"Jarod?" Leslie whispered, watching him to see if he showed any sign of recognition at the sound of his name.  He didn't.  "Jarod?" Leslie asked again, cautiously reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder.  Jarod reacted to that, jerking violently away from her hand and giving her a wary look.

Angelo shook his head.  "Not like that.  Jarod scared, hurt too much.  Afraid to trust."

"You can trust me, Jarod," Leslie said quietly.  "I'm here to help you."  Jarod said nothing; he just stared at her with those big, brown, fear-filled eyes.  The expression on his face seemed to indicate that he had no idea of what she was talking about, or possibly that she was even speaking to him.  Leslie had to try very hard to keep from cringing at the thought of what must have been done to him to put him in this condition.  "Please Jarod, you have to believe me," she said in an anxious tone.

Leslie continued her attempts to reach Jarod for several minutes, and still he said nothing.  Leslie had almost given up on getting through to him at all when he suddenly opened his mouth and said in a quiet, raspy tone, "Is that my name?"

"Excuse me?" Leslie asked, confusion quite evident on her features.

"Jarod.  Is that my name?"  Leslie nodded, a cold chill running through her body.  If Jarod was so far-gone that he didn't even remember his own name, she wasn't sure how she would be able to help him.

"I want to help you, Jarod," Leslie said for what seemed like the thousandth time.  "Please, let me help you."  Jarod looked into Leslie's eyes for a long moment, as if searching for something.  Leslie didn't look away; she wasn't sure of exactly what Jarod was searching for, but she sincerely hoped she had it.

Jarod continued to scrutinize her for a moment and then lowered his gaze.  "Get me out of here, please," he said frantically.

Leslie nodded.  "Okay."  She could feel a lump forming in her throat at the thought of what she was about to do, but also a sense of exhilaration.  She was sure, even though she had yet to experience much of the outside world, that it was very unusual for people to break a person out of prison when they were also the ones who had caused them to be imprisoned there barely two weeks before.

Leslie tentatively reached out to take Jarod's hand.  Jarod flinched, but he didn't pull away.  Leslie took his hand, and the two of them stood up slowly.  Now that he was standing up Jarod was a great deal taller than Leslie, but she wasn't greatly surprised by this fact.  Most adults were taller than she was.

Just then a noise rang out in the hallway.  Jarod turned toward the door, eyes wild.  "Someone's coming!"

"Hurry, hurry!" Angelo said, already having climbed up into the ventilation shaft and motioning for Jarod and Leslie to do the same.  The two of them rushed over, and Jarod and Angelo helped Leslie up into the shaft.  Then Angelo and Leslie moved back to make room for Jarod.  He scrambled up as fast as he could, and the three of them began to crawl frantically down the shaft, nobody realizing that in their haste they had left the grate lying on the floor below the shaft in plain sight.

**********

Lyle stormed past the small cell Jarod was being held in, heading for the room adjacent to it.  He threw the door open and walked in, his eyes blazing with anger even though he had managed to keep the more dangerous aspects of his fury in check.

Currently, the only occupants of the room were Mr. Cox and a few lab technicians who fearfully scurried out of the way as he walked by.  However, a medical bed had been set up nearby and, if Cox had been keeping to schedule, had been occupied not two hours ago by a certain very well-known Pretender.

"Have you been leaking information?" Lyle hissed in a quiet enough tone that the lab techs were unable to hear his words.

"Of course not," Mr. Cox replied, a slightly bemused expression on his face.

"Well, someone has," Lyle said, allowing the anger he was feeling at Miss Parker's discovery to be fully communicated by his eyes, "and I want whoever's been doing so found and disposed of."

Mr. Cox shook his head, an amused smile beginning to spread across his face.  "I can assure you that no one under my supervision is responsible for any security leak you may have discovered.  None of them knows any information other than what he needs to know to accomplish his job.  Even if half of the techs and medical experts working on this project began sharing information with each other, they wouldn't have enough information to figure out what we are really doing here.  If you are looking for a leak, you might want to try searching your own office."

Lyle glared at Mr. Cox.  "You'd better be right, because if you aren't heads are going to roll."  The tone of his voice made it clear that if Cox was wrong, his head would definitely be among them.

Mr. Cox seemed remarkably unperturbed by Lyle's obvious threat.  "Would you like to hang around for a while?" he asked nonchalantly.  "We're going to begin the final phase of the subject's programming soon."

"Sorry," Lyle said tersely, "but I have other things to deal with at the moment."  Things like Miss Parker, and the fact that she had at least discovered that Jarod was on the premises, although he seriously doubted she knew why.  If she had known that, she would undoubtedly have broken the door down, and brought a great deal of back-up along with her.

Lyle walked out of the room, deep in thought.  He would have to make sure this little project of his was finished as soon as possible.  If news got out that he had plans for Jarod contrary to those of the Centre at large, or worse, exactly what those plans were, he would quite likely find himself swimming at the bottom of the ocean clad in a pair of cement boots.

Just then the pair of techs from before walked past him, wearing surgical masks and pushing a hospital gurney.  They were headed directly for the room Jarod was currently occupying.  Lyle stepped aside to let them pass and then slowed for a moment, idly curious to see Jarod's reaction to the men.  He had found it amusing to watch Jarod's reactions change over the past two weeks, from fear, anger, and indignity at the way he was being treated to pure, unadulterated terror.

However, when the door slid open, instead of the entertaining sight of Jarod cowering in the shadows all it revealed was an empty room.  An empty room with the grate to the ventilation shaft lying on the floor.  Lyle swore loudly, pounding a hand against the nearest wall.  This was most definitely not a part of his plan.

**********

Miss Parker watched from a distance as Lyle pounded a wall with his fist, spouting words that would have made even a sailor blanch.  A puzzled frown crossed her face.  Apparently, something was wrong.  Her first guess was that Jarod had somehow escaped Lyle's clutches, and she doubted very highly that she was wrong.

Normally such an occurrence might have disturbed her, but this time she was almost glad.  The only reason she could think of that Lyle would have been keeping his possession of Jarod a secret, not to mention trying to make it look like Jarod was still on the loose, was that he had some secret agenda.  And Miss Parker didn't trust any secret agenda of Lyle's to serve anything but his own purposes.

She turned around and began to head for the nearest exit.  Just because she was glad Jarod was no longer in Lyle's clutches didn't mean she was going to let him escape without a hitch when it was her job to bring him in.

**********

Leslie blinked as she crawled out into the sunlight.  She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen light like this, and while it made her nervous, she also felt a strange sense of exhilaration.  Everything was so vibrant, so colorful!  If she hadn't been worried about the fact that within minutes the entire Centre would be breathing down her neck, she would probably have stopped in her tracks and taken a roll in the grass.

Jarod crawled out of the small hole after her, but he didn't seem at all interested in the beautiful scenery.  He looked about wildly, seeming more like a panicked animal than the man Leslie had once known him to be.  Leslie was tempted to lay a hand on his arm in an attempt to placate him but judged from his previous reactions that physical contact would probably not help matters at this point.

Suddenly Jarod bolted, running off through the hills with no apparent strategy in mind except simple escape.  Leslie turned to Angelo, unsure of what to do.

Angelo gave her a quick nod.  "Go.  Help him."

"Me?" Leslie squeaked, fear leaping into her chest.  Angelo merely nodded again.  Leslie took a deep breath.  She knew what she needed to do, what she was supposed to do.  "Alright."  And with that she ran off after Jarod as fast as her legs would carry her.

**********

Miss Parker ran out onto the Centre grounds, gun drawn.  She looked around and spied a man in the distance.  She ran towards him, a determined look on her face.  But as she got closer she could see that it was not Jarod, but Angelo who was standing before her.  "What the hell are you doing out here?" she asked exasperatedly.

Angelo gave her an enigmatic smile and simply said, "Jarod."

"Where is he?"  Miss Parker asked harshly.

Angelo shrugged.  "Gone."

Miss Parker gave Angelo an incensed look as she holstered his gun.  "You'd better get inside, and I mean right now."  Her tone left no room for doubt.  Angelo followed passively as Miss Parker led him inside the Centre, but the enigmatic smile remained.

**********

Fifteen minutes later Lyle slammed open the door to Miss Parker's office and walked inside, his entire frame tense with barely concealed rage.  "Where is he?" he asked angrily, slamming a hand on Miss Parker's desk.  Papers flew everywhere.

"Who?"  Miss Parker asked, giving Lyle a pointed look.

Lyle shot Miss Parker an infuriated glare.  "Don't you start with me, we both know who.  Where is Jarod?"

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't tell you that, since someone has been feeding my team false information for the past, what, two weeks?"  Miss Parker replied, her overall demeanor calm but her eyes filled with an icy fury.

A noise escaped Lyle's mouth that sounded suspiciously like a snarl.  "What did you do with him?"

"I didn't do anything with him.  Now, if you want to play twenty questions, do it some other time," Miss Parker said, a part of her savoring the irony of the situation.  She gestured toward the door, indicating that Lyle was to leave.  When Lyle didn't move she casually pulled out her gun, using it to gesture in the general direction of the door.  Lyle reluctantly began to turn around, his body rippling with pent-up anger.  As a parting shot Miss Parker called out to him as he walked out the door, "Oh, and if that was your usual interrogation technique, it could use a little work."

The End

More to come, I promise you.  The series has only just begun!


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